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Topic: Space Fence To Be Shutdown (Read 16313 times)

SST has already been up and running in New Mexico for some time, and yes they are looking to put one in Australia. But this is not a replacement for the Space Fence. Radar and optical are complementary technologies that each have different advantages and disadvantages. They are not substitutes for each other.

SST has already been up and running in New Mexico for some time, and yes they are looking to put one in Australia. But this is not a replacement for the Space Fence. Radar and optical are complementary technologies that each have different advantages and disadvantages. They are not substitutes for each other.

Note that the SST telescope located at Atomic Ridge is being moved to Australia. It is the same telescope.In the same agreement a c band radar is also being moved. I agree that each have there own advantages and therefore they are being relocated as a operational set to perform space servaliance.

BrianThanks for the paper. I had not seen it and it makes some very interesting points. My experience is that 110 million is not excessive for a mill spec system and I would expect that many of the academic offerings would grow during implimentation. Nothing goes into orbit for less then that price (I'm sure someone will show me my error). The cost of one B2 bomber is 20x that price! I understand that there is no budget for another and that the moving budget all boils down to what portion of already budgeted pots of money are available. As an Opticer I would love to see another ( or more) espically since all the R&D costs behind us.

The conclusion of the study was that the AF could buy a new telescope to put in Australia with much of the performance of the SST for the same cost it would take to move the SST from New Mexico to Australia.

The end result would cost the same but you'd have two systems instead of one.

The conclusion of the study was that the AF could buy a new telescope to put in Australia with much of the performance of the SST for the same cost it would take to move the SST from New Mexico to Australia.

The end result would cost the same but you'd have two systems instead of one.

Would love to see that happen but as I mentioned (perhaps not clearly) it may have to do with what is referred to as "The color of the money". As an example if there is only budget for maintenance they may be able to move the SST but not build a replacement. Crazy I know!With all the talk of Hexagon on the site I find it interesting that the photo below is the intended new home of SST

Secretary of the Air Force, Deborah Lee James, receives a briefing from Mr. Kenny Leines on the ALTAIR radar during a visit to the Marshall Islands, 20 January, 2015. ALTAIR (ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar) is a large, steerable dish-array radar at the U.S. ballistic missile test range on Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean. Operating at both VHF and UHF frequencies, it is an important collateral sensor in the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, particularly for detecting and tracking newly-launched satellites and for tracking objects in deep-space and geosynchronous orbits.

7/21/2015 - PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- About 1,000 miles from the nearest continental contact, deep in the central Indian Ocean are three telescopes peering up into space, watching and tracking objects while the rest of the world sleeps.

Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia is on a coral atoll in the British Indian Ocean Territories. The remote location is home to Detachment 2, 21st Operations Group, a geographically separated unit of the 21st Space Wing. The detachment is one of three Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance sites in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere.

"We're part of an Air Force space wing, aboard a Naval station, on a British island," said Capt. Donald Perrotta, Det. 2 commander. "The Navy and British are integral to our continued mission success. Diego Garcia definitely operates with a 'One island, One Team, One Mission' mentality."

Perrotta and Tech. Sgt. Layne Fuell are the only active duty Airmen in the detachment, along with about a dozen government contractors. Fuell was the first one in the NCOIC position for the detachment.

The one-meter telescopes operated by the detachment are passive sensors, Perrotta said, monitoring deep space only at night. They just watch and track space objects reflecting the light of the sun.

Watching at nighttime is something Perrotta compared to taking a telescope out in the backyard to look at the stars, only on a much larger scale. Each of the main telescopes has a 40-inch aperture and covers a two degree field of view. What that means is that they track deep space objects orbiting from 3,000-22,000 miles away, moving at speeds of up to 17,500 mph.

The low level of light pollution in the remote ocean location allows the telescopes a clearer view of space. The time difference between Diego Garcia and the other GEODSS sites in Hawaii and New Mexico, coupled with the field of view, allows maximum coverage of space.

Along with the members of Det. 2, there are other Airmen stationed for duty on the atoll. For example the 50th Network Operations Group, part of the 50th Space Wing from Schriever AFB is located on Diego Garcia, a Pacific Air Force detachment from the 36th Mission Support Group, and a detachment from the 730 Air Mobility Squadron from Yokota AFB are located there as well.

The NSF also houses logistic, service and installation support personnel and operations for U.S. and Allied forces deployed in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf areas. Sixteen separate commands, consisting of 360 military personnel, 1,800 base operation services contractor staff, 300 mariners, 220 civilians and 80 overseas government employees, call Diego Garcia home according to the military news web site Naval-Technology.com. British military and civilian personnel live on the atoll too. Det. 2 is a one year remote assignment.

One might think the station's location makes it a candidate for regular bouts of dangerous weather, but Fuell said that is not the case. Because of the location and the arrangement of the coral reefs they do not receive many typhoons. The reefs serve as a breakwater of sorts.

"We do get torrential rains," Fuell said, "But the last time there was a base lock down was about seven years ago, so it's really nice that way."

The atoll might be a relatively lonely outpost, but it is not without activities and social opportunities. Though space is limited - the atoll is about 30 nautical miles long - a selection of activities is provided by the Morale, Welfare and Recreation team to keep people busy.

USO tours come through providing entertainment from popular celebrities and musical acts. Groups like alternative rock band Vertical Horizon, Miss America, American Idol contestants and NFL cheerleaders have all made the journey to entertain at the base.

Fuell said he has his fingers in just about everything going on at Diego Garcia. Activities like sailing, biking, fishing and trail running are all popular. He said there is a beautiful outdoor, covered theater which shows first run movies - Jurassic World was screened on the same day it opened elsewhere.

There is a Captain's Cup series for those who are athletically inclined. The challenges vary but are typically something related to the group who picks the activities, with an athletic twist. On the last Friday of each month groups compete in the challenge set up by the previous month's winner, which cannot compete that month.

"They keep us pretty busy with things to do," Perrotta said. "There are definitely opportunities to beat boredom, get out of your room, and take advantage of what the island has to offer."

Having an award winning MWR team doesn't hurt, either. The Diego Garcia MWR boasts four-star accreditation from the Commander Navy Installations Command, which is in charge of all Navy installations. When it received its second accreditation in 2014 the MWR group was one of only nine installations so recognized. More than 480 events were hosted throughout the year, helping to promote physical readiness, a healthy lifestyle and generate camaraderie among all who are stationed there.

A good portion of the atoll is a nature preserve and requires permission from the British to enter. But in a pristine state, spending time there is worth it according to Fuell. Many people go there to take photos or to visit the ruins of an old plantation, he said. There also is a site where camping is permitted.

Sunscreen is a crucial item on Diego Garcia. Located seven degrees below the equator, the sun basically sits above the atoll all day and he says, will cook you. Average lows are about 78 degrees and highs around 85. The prevalent trade winds keep the temperatures steady, though it can fluctuate. But even with the hot sun he advocates going outside and getting involved in activities.

"Go out and get involved. If you stay in your room you'll be miserable," Fuell said. If a person gets involved with what's going on around the atoll it could be one of the best assignments of a career.

Flights into the NSF are not really an option so email, Internet chat, Facebook and Skype are often used to communicate with loved ones and friends elsewhere. Phone cards are available as well, so connecting that way is possible too.

BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORIES -- Workers replace a dome on a telescope at Detachment 2, 21st Operations Group, a geographically separated unit of the 21st Space Wing located on Diego Garcia Naval Support Facility in the British Indian Ocean Territories. The low level of light pollution in the remote ocean location allows the telescopes a clearer view of space. (U.S. Air Force photo)

KWAJALEIN, Marshall Islands — The Earth is orbited by half a million pieces of space debris, much of it leftovers from decades of missile, shuttle and satellite launches.

More than 20,000 pieces are bigger than a softball, some zooming faster than 17,000 mph, according to NASA.

The military has long tracked this atmospheric anarchy, to prevent collisions with working satellites and to monitor what potential adversaries might be launching into space.

The Air Force Space Surveillance System, which shut down in 2013 after 50 years, tracked about 20,000 objects. Space Fence, a tracking system being built by Lockheed Martin on the remote South Pacific island of Kwajalein, is expected to be able to track 200,000.

Dana Whalley, the Air Force’s Space Fence program manager, compared the old system to using a flashlight to search a dark attic, while Space Fence will light up the entire room.

A million tons of steel will anchor the radar array, which will allow the Air Force to monitor even subtle course changes for space junk.WYATT OLSON/STARS AND STRIPES

Space Fence will be able to detect objects as small as marbles at the roughly 250-mile height of the International Space Station. Such a small speck of debris might sound benign, but NASA has replaced space shuttle windows damaged by flying paint flecks.

Bruce Schafhauser, Lockheed Martin’s program director for space surveillance, called the project “a game changer of space situational awareness” during a recent tour of the radar site.

“Space is becoming an increasingly congested environment,” he said.

Space Fence will thoroughly catalog pertinent debris so that even subtle location changes can be detected. That will allow the U.S. to move satellites out of harm’s way.

“The fact that this is very precise is a benefit in two ways,” Schafhauser said. “First is that you wouldn’t be spending fuel moving things out of the way unnecessarily, and second, you reduce the risk of collision to begin with.”

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Space has also become increasingly contested, “given the continuing demonstrations of anti-satellite weaponry from other nations,” Schafhauser said. “We want to keep track of what they’re doing as well.”

China and Russia are developing anti-satellite weaponry, former U.S. Strategic Command chief Adm. Cecil Haney said last year during a speech in Washington.

“Russia has publicly stated they are researching and developing counterspace capabilities to degrade, disrupt and deny other users of space,” Haney said, adding that North Korea and Iran’s hacking and counterspace operations merit international attention.

The Air Force’s defunct tracking system was “basically a bell-ringer function,” meaning if something passed through, it would cue other sensors to determine its orbit and characteristics, he said. Space Fence can track and process movements on its own.

Lockheed Martin developed and built a small prototype in New Jersey before construction began on Kwajalein, about 2,100 miles southwest of Hawaii.

The $914 million system is expected to be finished by the end of 2018. Hundreds of technicians, engineers, electricians and laborers are working six 10-hour days a week on Kwajalein to stay on schedule.

Far fewer people will be needed to operate Space Fence once the Air Force takes over. About a dozen people will maintain the Kwajalein site, with 12 more at its operations center in Huntsville, Ala. Relevant data will be fed to the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., which will make decisions on space intervention.

The Air Force chose Kwajalein — home to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site — in part because its location near the equator is advantageous in monitoring objects in low-to-medium orbit, Space Fence’s target area.

The site is composed of two pressurized radar chambers, one for transmitting into space and the other for receiving those radio frequencies. Roofs covering each chamber are made of thick, electronically transparent Kevlar.

Passing through air locks into the radar chambers is an ear-popping experience. At the chambers’ ground level is a crisscross of a million pounds of anchoring steel.

“What you’re looking at is a steel structure that’s very sturdy to not only maintain alignment of the radar array face, which is at the very top of this, but also because we have seismic requirements that we’re dealing with here,” Schafhauser said during the tour. “That accounts for the size of it all.”

Wide aluminum columns carry coolant, and 50,000 tons of concrete make up the thick foundation and walls.

Building the radar system depends on a complex logistics stream that originates in Los Angeles, ships to Guam, then to Kwajalein.

Particularly challenging was the shipping and installation of the two sheets of Kevlar roofing. They were manufactured as two single pieces, the largest of which had to cover a 150-by-50-foot area after inflation.

The Kevlar was folded like an accordion, then shipped by sea. To avoid damage, it had to be unfolded and installed when winds were under 10 mph for at least 12 hours — a rarity on Kwajalein.

They ended up erecting a windbreaker around the building similar to the fencing found around tennis courts.

Space Fence is named for the grid-like pattern of beams it projects into space.

“That pattern of beams is attached to the Earth that rotates around, basically sweeping that fence around, and every satellite in low-Earth orbit passes through that fence an average of about twice a day,” Schafhauser said.